


our hollow bones

by eternal_elenea



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alternate Reality, Alternate Universe, Character Study, Gen, Self-Harm, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-03-08
Updated: 2012-03-08
Packaged: 2017-11-01 16:15:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/358788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/eternal_elenea/pseuds/eternal_elenea
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Jim learns early in his life how to hide himself, how to layer upon his face mask after mask, and how to get exactly what he wants. <em>A character study of Jim Moriarty.</em></p>
            </blockquote>





	our hollow bones

**Author's Note:**

> AU Moriarty character-study based on a universe without Sherlock. Also, this is my first time writing Sherlock fic of any kind, so I hope you enjoy! Concrit is welcome. Title and subtitle from ["Growing Old Is Getting Old"](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPsmPHwp9rE) by Silversun Pickups.

_You’re just like everyone else_ , she whispers into his ear, sometimes. _Jim,_ she whispers, _I promise_. These are the words that fill his ear, more than any others. _I promise,_ she says and that’s when Jim learns that words mean nothing and that promises mean even less; that they mean as often the opposite of what they’re supposed to. _I promise,_ she says, and Jim learns how to say it himself, learns the words to give, the genuine smile, the look in her eyes. Jim learns the quivering tremble in her voice and he finds his mask, finds the little boy that he’s supposed to be.

 _I promise_ , Jim says, eyelashes fluttering, mouth twitched upwards.

-

Carl Powers dies and it is just another in a string of bodies that no one will pin to Jim. He tells his clients, later, that it’s his first job, that it’s when he found himself – _Jim Moriarty_ – but the truth is that Jim learns of himself far earlier; earlier, perhaps, than even he remembers. Jim learns of himself when she turns on the telly on Tuesday nights, after she’s come back from her shift at the hospital, blood up and down her arms; learns of himself watching children in the schoolyard and mapping out their smiles, mapping out their accents and their veins where the kitchen knife would slice. Jim learns of himself from the way that he doesn’t shake, the way that he dreams of their heads, carved like pumpkins, and bloody eye sockets.

-

Everyone loves Jim because he wants them to, wants to hear afterwards the way that they praise him to her – “oh, your Jim is such a sweet boy, such a smart boy” – and see her smile _that_ smile, which is now his. Jim wants them to think of him not as normal, but extraordinary, and still to be hidden. Jim wants their smiles, their accents, their praise, all crawling inside him, and what Jim wants, Jim always gets.

Sometimes, though, Jim wants them to see underneath the veneers, beneath the shiny teeth and the genuine eyes. _Sometimes_ Jim wants them to see who he truly is, his laugh and his voice and his glory; he _wants_. He secludes this fancy of his, turns it into another mask, buries it deep inside himself until he forgets. This is not something that Jim knows that he wants, not anymore, but even _this_ Jim will get eventually.

-

 _You’re just like everyone else, Jim, I promise_ , she tells him and now he can hear the curl of her words, the closeness of her breath, the way that she tries to convince them both. _You're human too_ , she whispers; they two are the ones, the only ones, that know that it’s not true.

-

What he wants, what he really wants, is to carve them from ear to ear, to feel the blood gurgle out of their bodies and see them try to scream. Jim wants to feel pulses draining from bodies along with blood, wants to feel their throats underneath his fingers. But, no, that’s not true at all, is it. What Jim _really_ wants is to do it to himself, to feel his own blood, sticky. But, then, Jim will never get that, will he, because he’s not like everyone else – he’s not blood inside.

-

I love you, he says, once. Only once and he doesn't mean it even then; if he did, Jim thinks, he wouldn't know it. He says "I love you" to a corpse in the ground that he's half-sure is himself, that he's sure is half-himself. He says "I love you" and what he means is "why have you left" and "who will I play with now?" and maybe "good fucking riddance." Jim says "I love you" but for all he knows what those words mean, he cannot fathom how they feel, not even for her.

-

They are dolls: they are ragdolls, _toys_ , strewn across factory floors. They are too easy, not enough, no _fun._ Jim can see behind their eyes as he caresses them, slides his knife across their necks; he can see when they said that they’d kill someone, when they imagined dying themselves. Jim can _see_ and so he knows that when they mouth, hysterical, “please, please, please don’t,” they really mean “please _do_.” They are all too easy and they will never be a challenge not for him, because Jim always gets what he wants, because he’s _Jim Moriarty_ , because no one will ever know him. Sometimes, Jim wishes that he could hunt himself because at least that would be a _challenge_.

-

He holds a knife to his wrists, laughing, presses into them with the blade until the blood wells to through the slits. He watches, laughing, as the paramedics pour in and even now they are too late. I bleed, he says. I _bleed_ , he says, and what he means is "I am not so different than you." He slits his wrists and he mouths at him, licks up the blood until his teeth are stained with it, until his lips are covered in it. Until he's bathed in the red red red and his eyes can see nothing else, not even the sirens.  



End file.
